


We Dig Our Fingers in and Refuse to Let Go

by stardropdream



Series: Too Strong to Lose [1]
Category: xxxHoLic
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-24
Updated: 2013-02-24
Packaged: 2017-12-03 10:15:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,793
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/697169
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stardropdream/pseuds/stardropdream
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The day Watanuki tells Himawari she shouldn't come over anymore, Himawari finally comes face to face with everything she feared would happen.</p><p>Pairing: Blink and you'll miss the slight Dou/Wata/Hima. And/or one-sided Hima --> Wata/Dou</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Dig Our Fingers in and Refuse to Let Go

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on LJ August 21, 2011.

  
**I.**  
“I think it’d be better if you didn’t come here anymore, Himawari-chan.”  
  
  
 **II.**  
Doumeki finds her sitting on the porch. Watanuki is inside. He’s cooking. It’s his birthday and the sun is shining and by all means Himawari should be happy, but she cannot be. Not like this. She wonders if she’d always been too foolish to believe she could ever have the capacity to be happy. And now it seems that she’s, even if only through the vague connection of friendship, dragged the two most important people in her life down into unhappiness as well.  
  
She’s blocking the stairs up onto the veranda and at first she doesn’t notice his approach—he’s always been so quiet—until his feet step out in front of her and she’s forced to look up and away from where she’d spent the last few hours studying her knees or the sky or her fingernails or the way her hair curled around her shoulders.  
  
She gives him a smile and hopes it isn’t too hollow. “Doumeki-kun.”  
  
“Hey,” he says, and though to anyone else he could so easily look expressionless, there is the slightest furrow to his brow, the slightest indication that he knows, instantly, that something is wrong.  
  
“Where’s Kohane-chan?” she asks before he can ask the question. “She usually comes along with you, doesn’t she?”  
  
Doumeki frowns, and it’s clear he’s displeased with her attempts to direct the conversation away from her, before the conversation has even started.  
  
Not waiting for an answer, she scoots over to give him room up onto the veranda. She nods her head behind her. “He’s been preparing dinner for the last few hours. If you want to say hi.” She forces the laugh she doesn’t really feel. “Though he’ll certainly have something to say if you appear in the kitchen.”  
  
He doesn’t move. She wishes he would, she wishes so desperately that he would.  
  
  
 **III.**  
Awkward silence falls between them. Or, at least, Himawari feels that the awkwardness is there. She almost fidgets, but she stops herself before she can.  
  
“What happened?” he asks, and there is a frown on his face now, and he’s looking at her with that inscrutable expression, the one that she knows means he won’t let her lie for a moment.  
  
She sighs out and looks away, lowering her eyes and fighting back the urge to cry as she remembers the conversation from earlier in the day—the words weigh heavy in her chest, a thick metallic ball that presses against her throat and heart and makes it so hard to breathe, to even consider moving from this spot. Maybe if she refuses to move at all, she won’t have to leave him. Maybe if she refuses to leave, he won’t make her.  
  
  
 **IV.**  
She knows the thoughts are foolish, and impossible. Already she feels the distance growing—has known that it’s been growing since the very beginning. It was only a matter of time before the one thing that made her happy self-destructed and she was left alone. She should have known. She knows now. She’s bitterly reminded now—she can never have happiness.  
  
She studies the floorboards to the porch. She links her hands together in front of her and watches Doumeki. He’s staring at her, still waiting for her answer. She knows that he can out-wait her any day. Even when he is silent, he is imploring. Even when he is silent, he is demanding. She supposes that’s what people find intimidating—and alluring—about Doumeki. She doesn’t wonder why so many girls like him. There’s something attractive in the way he is so concrete, so solid.  
  
It’s something she especially envies in him now that the tears are threatening to flood over and she blinks rapidly because she knows if she speaks, her voice will waver and betray her.  
  
  
 **V.**  
She inhales sharply.  
  
“What happened?” he repeats.  
  
She exhales.  
  
  
 **VI.**  
That was just like Doumeki. A reluctant smile grows across her mouth.  
  
“Nothing,” she whispers and already knows he won’t accept that answer. “I came early, since I wasn’t busy. And now because it’s such a nice day I’m waiting for you and Kohane-chan to get here. You should let Watanuki-kun know you’re here.”  
  
His stare is a physical weight on her shoulders. Her body feels knotted up and she clenches her eyes shut and one tear threatens to spill down her cheek. She shudders out a quiet breath and discretely wipes it away before tucking some hair behind her ear. Tanpopo makes a sad little chirrup from her shoulder and she pets him absentmindedly.  
  
He sits down beside her, and Himawari knows he isn’t about to leave soon. She doesn’t know if he’s noticed she’s crying, but he notices so many things—little things, _everything_ —that she’d honestly be shocked if he didn’t know.  
  
She feels her heart break. She felt the shame roll over her and she keeps breathing because it’s all she can do and all she can think to do and all she can stomach to do.  
  
There’s too much shame, too much sadness—she used to be so happy. She can remember those times—their picnics together, Watanuki grinning and carrying on, Doumeki stoically stealing food when Watanuki wasn’t looking, and Himawari being there with them, feeling like maybe she could be part of someone else’s world, after all, that she didn’t have to be so unbearably alone anymore.  
  
So quickly that illusion was falling down around her, and she hated it. Maybe if she pretended—  
  
  
 **VII.**  
But she can’t pretend. Not about this. She can pretend about so many things, but not this.  
  
“I…” she begins, and glances at him again. His expression isn’t harsh or angry anymore, just concerned. She can see the slightest hint of a slant to his eyebrows, and his eyes aren’t wavering away from her. She holds his gaze for a moment, feels her eyes mist over.  
  
She’s the first to look away—of course she is.  
  
He’s the only friend she has left anymore. She’s lost one, and she’ll lose the other soon. She can feel the severing, can feel the distance grow even now. She has the ridiculous urge to grab his hand, to pull him close, to keep him close—for the illusion, the semblance that maybe they can be happy.  
  
She doesn’t move.  
  
  
 **VIII.**  
“I won’t come here anymore,” she says, finally spitting the words out and surprised by the combination of sadness and bitterness the single sentence permeates. Her fingers are shaking and she clenches her knees tightly to keep from shaking.  
  
In the back of her mind she thinks she should be smiling—proving she’s okay—smile and smile and smile and wait until she’s alone to cry until she doesn’t have any tears left. But when she tries to move her lips, the smile feels too broken and hollow even for her. So she just lets the tears well up in her eyes, threatening to spill.  
  
“H… he says that he’s not powerful enough to handle my bad luck. I can’t—it’s too dangerous, he says.” Her breath is shuddering when she whispers, lowering her head, “ _I’m_ too dangerous.”  
  
She can remember a time when, for one brief, hopeful moment, she didn’t feel dangerous—that even though she knew she could destroy everything she loved with one simple mistake, these two precious boys could make her feel like she was just like any other girl, hopelessly in love and hopelessly happy.  
  
She almost laughs.  
  
  
 **IX.**  
She is no longer the precious girl, and the difference is too jarring. There was a time when just a simple hello could send Watanuki spiraling into happiness. There was a time when just the sight of her could make Watanuki’s day. And now she is not that, now she is delegated to _Not Yuuko-san._ Now she is the other—the thing that could disrupt his chances to see the person most important to him again.  
  
She knows she is bitter. But her heart is heavy and she can’t help the bitterness that forms in the base of her gut. She has always been a selfish person—horribly selfish. If she’d been less selfish, maybe—  
  
She is unnecessary now.  
  
She knows she’s being unfair, but she can’t help the thoughts. She is _other_. She is unnecessary. She knows this is unfair—she knows that Watanuki loves her, that she loves him in return. She knows that she is precious to him.  
  
But she is not Yuuko.  
  
The realization—something she’d always known, deep down—is too devastating to bear.  
  
She is alone.  
  
  
 **X.**  
“He’s—he’s,” she says, swallowing around the bitterness and the tearful waver. Doumeki is staring at her still, still waiting for her to speak—waiting, waiting, always waiting. “He’s,” she says again, quiet, “such an idiot.”  
  
For a brief moment she wonders if Doumeki’s expression would crumble, or if that’s just the way her tears blur her vision.  
  
“Yeah,” he agrees.  
  
  
 **XI.**  
They sit in silence. She cries. He places a hand on her back and there is a comfort in the weight of it.  
  
  
 **XII.**  
He stands up after a few minutes and Himawari is seized with such an unbearable fear that she’ll never see him again that she almost grabs his hand. But she resists.  
  
He returns quickly enough sitting down closer beside her than before, and silently holds out some tissues.  
  
  
 **XIII.**  
“You’re going to listen to him?” he asks once she’s calmed down a bit.  
  
She smiles, bitter. “He’s decided. I won’t endanger him or anyone else.”  
  
She wipes at her eyes and blows her nose. There is a small pile of tissues collecting on her other side. Doumeki sits beside her, and he feels strong and warm beside her—she wishes she could have that strength.  
  
“I’m dangerous,” she whispers.  
  
“You’re not,” he says without missing a beat and says it with such ferocity that she’s nearly taken aback.  
  
She blinks at him.  
  
  
 **XIV.**  
And then she smiles. “Thank you.”  
  
  
 **XV.**  
He’s either delusional or lying, she thinks. Doumeki doesn’t lie. So it must be the former.  
  
  
 **XVI.**  
“I’m sorry,” he says.  
  
She stands up.  
  
“I should leave,” she says.  
  
He stands up, too, and grabs her wrist before she can dart away.  
  
“Don’t,” he says.  
  
She doesn’t move, but she doesn’t relax against his touch, either.  
  
“Let go, please,” she says.  
  
“I can’t. You can’t, either.”  
  
  
 **XVII.**  
With a force she didn’t realize she had, she whipped her arm free of his hold and starts running. She doesn’t look back, and she doesn’t know if he’ll chase her—  
  
He won’t, she thinks. He’s tied to Watanuki’s side now.  
  
She’s lost both of them.  
  
She’s alone.  
  
  
 **XVIII.**  
Alone—


End file.
